It used to be common for a doctor to pay a house call on a sick person. Now when we’re ailing, we drag ourselves to a doctor’s office for treatment-a doctor rarely will trek to our homes to treat us.
But in trucking, the trend is reversed. Increased competition in the maintenance and repair business has pushed a lot of service work outside the garage and onto the roads. The results are strong; mobile maintenance and repair operations are pulling in big business.
Mobile maintenance breaks down into two different predominant categories: Emergency roadside repair and preventive maintenance (PM).
Dave Albert, manager, customer satisfaction marketing, Volvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks Inc., explained, “There are differences between mobile maintenance and emergency breakdown or mobile repair. There are two separate markets and you have to decide which you’re going to enter into before you start equipping your truck.”
Mobile Fleet Services, Yakima, WA, is a good example of a company with an organized mobile repair system.
Ric Knight, service manager, said, “We have four mobile maintenance or repair vehicles here. We have two trucks equipped to make roadside repairs. We have another truck that is set up to do Thermo King repairs, since we’re also a Thermo King dealer. We have a fourth truck that is solely a lube truck that goes to customers’ sites and is equipped only to change oil and perform PM services.”
Onboard the two roadside repair trucks are generators and jumpstart systems. The trucks are equipped with lift gates that allow technicians to load their toolboxes into the trucks so that the truck isn’t constantly stocked with tools.
